The present invention relates, in general, to bonding pads, and, in particular, to bonding pads for semiconductor devices.
Bonding pads are well known in the art of semiconductor devices and are generally rectangular in shape. Bonding pads are used to bond a wire to the semiconductor device. The other end of the wire is connected to a lead of an external leadframe.
In many semiconductor devices, it is necessary to have a low MOS capacitance value. Existing bonding pad designs have an unacceptably high MOS capacitance resulting from their large surface area creating a capacitive coupling with the back metal of the device. This affects the speed and integrity of the signal being transmitted.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a bonding pad that will overcome the above deficiency.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a bonding pad that reduces the capacitance of the device.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a bonding pad with sufficient solid area for needle placement during probe testing.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a bonding pad having an alignment key.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a bonding pad covering an area sufficient to compensate for alignment variations in the wire bonding equipment.